Lotus: A Historical Timeline

The 60 years leading up to the all-new Evora have included precisely zero plain cars.

Lotus has never been a big car company, as measured by the size of its cars or the scope of its sales. This is a function of focus: Like Enzo Ferrari, Lotus founder Colin Chapman started building road cars primarily as a means of feeding a racing habit, and for many years, Lotus was one of Ferrari’s chief rivals on the racetrack. Although gone from racing’s top echelon for many years—2010 marks Lotus’s reentry after a 16-year absence from Formula 1—the company’s (occasionally uncertain) history on the street continues uninterrupted from the late ‘40s through today. What follows is a history of the world’s lightest-car company, from the very first homebuilt ambler to today’s newest sports car, the Evora.

1948Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman graduates from engineering school. He modifies a 1928 Austin Seven for local trials races. (Our resident Brit describes trials as “a peculiar form of racing that times cars through treacherous off-road sections, often uphill, often muddy, and always abusive toward the car.”) This diminutive 15-hp car scores a number of wins and provides enough prize money to develop Chapman’s next car.

1949Chapman modifies another Austin Seven for trials racing and dubs it the Lotus Mark II, retroactively christening his previous car the Mark I.

1952Chapman founds the Lotus Engineering Company to build race cars, the first of which is the Mark IV trials car.

1957Essentially a formula car for the road, the lightweight, quick, and responsive Mark VII—known today simply as the 7—starts production in 1957 and continues on today as the Caterham 7. C/D’s first test of the 7 comes in June 1960. We say of the 1300-pound 7 America: “There’s nothing like it for blowing away the cobwebs of a city office.” Although the handling is praised, acceleration from the 48-hp, 948-cc four-cylinder with a scant 52 lb-ft of torque leaves plenty to be desired—60 mph comes up in just over 12 seconds with the quarter-mile arriving in 19. (As a modern comparison, that’s barely quicker than the Smart ForTwo, a car that is not perfect for blowing away anything but may be perfect for blowing up.) Top speed is a low yet still plenty thrilling 81 mph. The price for all this excitement is $2795, or about $20,000 in today’s dollars.

Lotus Super 7 S4

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

To make enough money to keep racing, Chapman develops his first dedicated production car, the Elite, which features a lightweight fiberglass body and structure. Powered by a single-overhead-cam Coventry Climax 1.2-liter engine making 102 hp, the fiberglass Elite weighs in at 1705 pounds. Our testing reveals a 0-to-60 time of 8.2 seconds and a top speed of 123 mph. A base price of $5700 in our 1960 test works out to about $40,000 today.

Our June 1960 road test: “On the road, one of the most remarkable things about the car is the lightness of the rack-and-pinion steering, and, in fact, all the other controls. It’s rarely necessary to move the steering-wheel rim more than a few inches and even in the wet the slightest movement of the wheel serves to correct an incipient slide. The engine never seems to be overworked, and thanks to its aerodynamic shape, the Elite gives far less impression of speed than most sports cars—gliding along at 120 mph while others feel to be laboring at 80 mph.”

Lotus Elite

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1962The expense of producing the fiberglass Elite leads Lotus to develop a steel frame for the Elan. The two-seat roadster mounts a fiberglass body onto a steel backbone—a construction style almost every Lotus will utilize for the next 30 or so years—and weighs 1705 pounds. Later, a coupe version is offered. Under the hood is a Ford-based four-cylinder engine displacing 1499 cc and fitted with an aluminum Lotus double-overhead-cam eight-valve head. After selling only 22 examples, Lotus one-ups itself, enlarging the four to 1558 cc and recalling the cars to install the more-powerful engines. (Walter Cronkite and the U.S. Congress somehow fail to notice this recall.) Our 1964 test reveals a 7.1-second 0-to-60 time, a quarter-mile time of 15.7 seconds at 87 mph, and a top speed of 112 mph.

We are smitten with the Elan and declare that it “very simply represents the sports car developed in tune with the state of the art. It comes closer than anything else on the market to providing a Formula car for ordinary street use. And it fits like a Sprite, goes like a Corvette, and handles like a Formula Junior.”

Lotus Elan roadster

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1963Ford and Lotus team up to create a hot version of Ford’s boxy Cortina sedan by dropping in the DOHC 1.6-liter Lotus-Ford engine from the Elan. Lotus tweaks the Cortina’s suspension, and the little rear-driver becomes a drifting machine. The company builds 2894 between 1963 and 1966. In 1967, with the introduction of the second-generation Cortina, Chapman’s company stops building the Lotus Cortina (or Cortina-Lotus as Ford calls it) and instead sends the engine and chassis parts to Ford, who takes over assembly and all the credit. The car (built until 1970) still wears Lotus badges, but Ford calls it the Ford Cortina Twin-Cam, dropping the Lotus portion of the name altogether.

Lotus Cortina Mk2

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1966Chapman builds Lotus’s first mid-engine production car, the Europa. Like the Elan, the Europa is supported by a steel backbone frame. The awkwardly styled car is powered by an 82-hp, 1.5-liter four-cylinder from Renault. In a May 1968 feature, we uncharacteristically and vaguely cite 0-to-60 acceleration as “a little less than 10 seconds.” But we do reveal a quarter-mile time of 17.8 seconds at 78 mph.

In that same issue, then senior editor David E. Davis, Jr., calls the Europa “an absolute gas as a $4000 toy for two slim enthusiasts to take out for an hour’s blasting around. But as a generally worthwhile, functional piece of transportation, it is a total washout.” Davis is disappointed in Lotus’s lax approach to modernity. “Sooner or later, even Mr. Chapman and his Gallic confrères will have to admit that 1984 is no time to be selling 1967 automobiles, and the Europa will fade from America’s view. But in the meantime, the dimbulbs are gonna buy a million of ’em because Road & Track will love it.”

Lotus Europa Special

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1967In an attempt to make a more practical Elan, Lotus creates the Elan +2, which has a small back seat. The stretching and widening adds about 300 pounds to the Elan. With 118 hp, the familiar 1.6-liter DOHC four-cylinder engine provides 0-to-60 times of about eight seconds and a top speed of 120 mph. With a price of $5995 (roughly $40,000 today), sales are slow.

An April 1969 C/D story on the Elan +2 concludes, “If you want a car that’s easy on your passengers while you’re amusing yourself—but at the same time doesn’t tend to disturb your adrenaline—you’ll be hard put to find anything better no matter how much you’re willing to pay.”

Lotus Elan +2

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1974Lotus tries to move upmarket with the front-engine, four-seat Elite hatchback. Although surprisingly practical and motivated by a DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine with 140 hp in U.S. tune, the Elite is expensive and arguably overpriced at $16,300 ($70,000 in 2010).

In a May 1975 feature, Patrick Bedard calls the Elite “a Mustang II taken to the very highest limits, just as it could be said that an Elan was a much-massaged MGB refined until it was an unmistakably pure sports car. The word will get out on the Elite. When it does, there will be another legend in the making.”

Lotus Elite

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

Meanwhile, the Elan goes out of production and the rights to build the 7 are sold to a Lotus dealer, Caterham Cars, which continues to build the lightweight roadster to this day.

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1975Based on the Elite, the less expensive and more rakishly styled Eclat enters production. The Eclat—known as the Sprint in the U.S.—has the same powertrain as the Elite, but it is decontented to bring the price down. Europa production ends.

1976The mid-engine Esprit enters production with the Elite’s 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine making 140 hp in U.S. tune. Styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the wedge-shaped Esprit runs from 0 to 60 in 9.6 seconds, according to a July 1977 road test. Cornering performance is notably better. At $16,415 ($60,000 today), the Esprit isn’t a bargain, but we conclude, “If you think sixteen grand for all that is too much money, you’ve been living in a time capsule, because it’s doubtful that you can buy equivalent total performance anywhere, at any price. And even if you could, you still wouldn’t get those pure-Lotus sensations. When Chapman says Boy Racer, he means it.”

Lotus Esprit

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1979We test a revised Esprit S2. Despite having the same engine and output as the ’77 tester, it sprints from 0 to 60 mph in 8.4 seconds and leads us to ask the question, “Who ever thought the class of the exoticar field would come from England?” Crushed by the doldrums of the 1970s automotive scene, we don’t even think to ask, “Who ever thought the class of the exoticar field would take more than eight seconds to get to 60?”

1980Lotus shows off a turbocharged Esprit that bumps output to 210 hp (205 in the U.S.). The Esprit Turbo doesn’t arrive in America until 1983—history’s most extreme example of turbo lag.

Lotus Esprit Turbo

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1982Colin Chapman dies of a heart attack amid rumors that he might have been somehow involved in the cocaine dealings of John De Lorean. Lotus puts a $47,984 price tag on the Turbo, which would be the equivalent of $105,000 today. We conclude that, for the money, “the Lotus Esprit Turbo is a real car, not a half-finished imitation. It is full of dash and thrills and heart, and we hope Chapman’s quiet death came with a smile on his lips. He deserved at least that.”

1983In a November 1983 test, we find that the Esprit Turbo hits 60 mph in 6.4 seconds and blows through the quarter in 14.6 at 95 mph.

1986General Motors buys a controlling interest in Lotus.

1989Powered by an Isuzu four-cylinder engine, the front-wheel drive Elan convertible debuts at the Frankfurt auto show and goes on sale the following year in Europe. Changes to the bumpers, structure, chassis, and engine mean that a U.S.-compliant Elan doesn’t arrive until 1991. By the time the Elan reaches the States, it costs $40,989 ($70,000 today), which places the diminutive roadster above cars like the Chevrolet Corvette convertible and Porsche 944S2 cabriolet, neither of which has a 162-hp Isuzu engine under the hood.

Although the Elan’s engine may have plebeian roots, the performance is respectable—60 mph falls in 6.4 seconds, and the quarter is eclipsed in 15.1 at 92 mph. In an August 1991 test, we write that “the Elan is the finest car Lotus has ever built,” but our testimony doesn’t count for much among consumers. Lotus plans on selling between 3000 and 3500 Elans a year, and initial volumes are promising, but then sales fall flat. By 1993, the Elan is dead. When production stops, Lotus has 800 engines stockpiled. In 1994, under new ownership, Lotus builds 800 more Elans for European consumption with the leftover engines.

Lotus Elan (Euro spec)

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1990To create the Lotus Carlton (or Omega in mainland Europe), Lotus starts with Opel/Vauxhall’s big sedan, the Carlton/Omega, disassembles it, and then enlarges and turbocharges the inline-six to yield 377 hp and 419 lb-ft of torque. To make it handle like a Lotus, the Carlton gets a Lotus-tuned chassis and seriously meaty tires. Lotus claims a 0-to-60 time of 5.2 seconds and a quarter-mile of 13.6 seconds at 109 mph. Top speed is a still-impressive 175 mph. In England, the car costs $92,000 (that’s about $150,000 today). We’re left saying, “If absolute power corrupts absolutely, it is appropriate that the Lotus Carlton is absolutely expensive.”

Lotus Carlton

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

1993GM sells Lotus to Italian businessman Romano Artioli, who also owns Bugatti at the time.

1996Artioli sells Lotus to Proton, a Malaysian carmaker. Lotus goes back to basics and starts building the mid-engine, lightweight, two-seat Elise. Underpinned by a novel tub made of aluminum sections glued together, the Elise weighs a scant 1500 pounds. We cry out for Lotus to bring the Elise to our shores.

Lotus Elise Sport 160

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

Lotus develops a 350-hp twin-turbo V-8 and drops it into the Esprit V-8. In November 1997, we test the Esprit V-8 and find that it moves from 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds on its way to a top speed of 173 mph. Despite the new engine, the 22-year-old Esprit’s age is showing, and we report, “We can’t help wondering what Lotus’s engineers, given the fiscal wherewithal, might accomplish given a clean sheet of foolscap.”

Lotus Esprit V-8

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

2000The Exige, a sportier and more powerful hardtop version of the Elise, enters production. Lotus also begins building the Elise-based Opel Speedster/Vauxhall VX220 for GM of Europe.

2004After redesigning the Elise in 2000, Lotus finally stuffs in a U.S.-emissions-compliant engine, a 190-hp, 1.8-liter Toyota four-cylinder. Sales begin in America as a 2005 model. In its first comparison test, the Elise is pitted against a Caterham 7, a Honda S2000, a Mazdaspeed Miata, and a Factory Five Racing Mark II (a Shelby Cobra replica). The Lotus finishes first. We record a stunning 0-to-60 time of 4.4 seconds and pull 1.06 brain-compressing g on the skidpad. We call it “a pure sports car for sports-car purists.”

Lotus Elise SC 220

TOM SALT, THE MANUFACTURER

2006The Europa S, a restyled hardtop version of the Opel Speedster, goes on sale. The world barely notices.

2009The four-seat, mid-engine Evora enters production with a 276-hp Toyota V-6. We suspect it might be the most civil car in Lotus history, and to test our hypothesis, we drive one from England to Rome and back. We call it “a daily driver that will appeal to people who have never had a Lotus before,” which is almost everybody on the planet.